Weekend Estimates by Despicapointing Klady

In the very rare Tuesday 4th of July window, Despicable Me 3 had a softer 3-day than would be expected and will come up short of the $100m 5-day. Don’t cry too hard for the Minions, who will still generate more than $700m worldwide. Baby Driver, on the flip side, overperformed its Friday with over $20m. The House rolled double 8s… but $8.8m, not $88m. The Beguiled is also estimating more than 3x Friday’s gross for the 3-day. The Little Hours leads in per-screen on 2, but the expansion to 71 screens for The Big Sick is still close.

So… Despicable Me 3‘s 3-day is worse than my low estimate in the low 80s. What does it mean?

Well, I’m still not done waiting for more evidence. The Tuesday holiday is so odd that we really don’t know how it affected the weekend. Of course, Minions still had a $116 million opening 3-day without any unique circumstances. When people are desperate to go, they go whenever you release the movie. But we are in an odd space when a $75 million 3-day is seen in any way as disappointing. This opening is a lot closer to Despicable Me 2 than to Despicable 1 and the huge launch of Minions, in perspective, suggests that the clarity of the spin-off (broad physical comedy, not a story movie, safe for little ones) may just be a stronger play.

Even if international dipped to $500 million, domestic is still going to be over $200 million (very conservatively). I’m not ready to start mourning films that gross over $700 million worldwide. (Still shake my head every time someone blithely refers to the $700m+ grossing Amazing Spider-Man 2 as a “disaster.”)

And there is every chance that Despicable Me 3 will be over $800m worldwide, which would make it the #1 animated movie of 2017 by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also worth mentioning… Universal’s claim of under-$100m costs on the Illumination movies is true… but not 100% true. Unlike Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks Animation, that number does not reflect studio overhead that is built into everyone else’s cost estimates. What the details of Illumination’s deal with Universal are is unknown… but likely includes overhead costs at the studio that are not reflecting in the “cost of the film.” Don’t be surprised if DWA’s “costs per film” drops by a lot – half or more – as their films start being released by Universal, as a function of accounting, not the complete picture.

2017 “only” has two billion-dollar worldwide grossers so far. Star Wars VII will surely join that pair. A fourth seems unlikely at this time.

The problem is, media perception is now like the stock market… the window of information tends to be very short. We may, indeed, be over on the other side of Peak IP. We may be seeing so many franchises making 4th and 5th and 6th movies (or more) that are exhausting their once-enthusiastic audiences. This only makes sense.

How does one describe the box office of Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which will land between $850 million and $900 million worldwide? It’s a big success. A hit, obviously. But it didn’t accelerate into the next strata. So is Disney and Marvel disappointed? You betcha. But are they unhappy? No way. Same with smaller-grossing Dr. Strange and Ant-Man. They would have loved a few hundred million more on those well-liked movies… but you can’t weep over with grosses over $500 million and over $650 million respectively.

Anyway… in happier news, Baby Driver is estimated to overperform its Friday gross, as it tries to build a smaller, but exciting haul for a relatively low-budget film. $20 million is an important bar for a genre opening. (And Sony could be overestimating.) Regardless of the detail work, this is a big enough audience sampling that what is presumed to be positive word of mouth can really rev things up.

Not much to be said about WB’s dump of The House. Bad for everyone. And that RT score is, in part, a reflection of how the studio positioned the film. It basically screamed, “We hate this movie and you will too.”

Focus took The Beguiled to 674 screens… to good, but not overwhelming effect. The best comp may be Focus’ very own Nocturnal Animals from last year. They took that film wider faster and got pretty much the same number, though Nocturnal was already $3 million into its run when it expanded to 1262 screens. So the answer is… we’ll see. No doubt, there will be another expansion next week or the week after. And the audience will speak. But $10 million is a fair expectation and more than $15 million seems unlikely, given the current numbers.

The Big Sick held strong in its expansion to 71 screens. But like Beguiled, hard to know what is coming with any precision. But expect the teens.

The other per-screen hero this weekend was The Little Hours, the horny, stoned nun comedy from Aubrey Plaza, her husband, and the parade of talented friends who made the trip to the European countryside to improvise this comedy.

93 Responses to “Weekend Estimates by Despicapointing Klady”

Holy cow this weekend was weaker than expected (aside from BABY DRIVER and a nice hold by WW). So weak that 2017 has suddenly fallen behind 2016 domestically much earlier than expected.

Cue the sky is falling narrative! Hysterics aside, 2017 should retake a small lead over the next three weeks but August looks stupefyingly weak. A ton of stuff I want to see, but it also looks quite possibly like the first August in 17 years without a $100 million hit.

Also….comedy’s gotten a lot of flak, but this is an unusually weak year at the box office for animation.

Quality wise, the Oscar race looks like the weakest in years (YOUR NAME was submitted last year so is ineligible). Hopefully the two LEGO movies and CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS will get some love despite “underperforming.” Fingers crossed for EMOJI.

Comedies, have been chasing after that Bridesmaid/Hangover shit, for fucking years. People, have moved on from this shit, but the studios keep trying to make gross out comedies, because… their are grasping for fucking straws. This whole Summer, is studios spending so much fucking money, grasping at straws.

Everyone, besides Asia, were past the Pirates movies, but let’s make another Pirates movie. No one wants to see Rough Night, because who wants to sit through that fucking premise? Transformers? Faltered last time, and is doing worse this time. Watch the G1 movie they are making, actually blow away this film’s domestic gross. Alien Covenant? HA! You can look at all of these choices, and all of them are just uninspiring. You need fucking shit, that’s different in this day and age, and Guardians and Wondie are different from what we usually get.

I have no idea, when execs will get inspired, but they fucking need to stop following Marvel and DC. Stop with the cinematic universes, and just create new fucking shit. NEW SHIT NOW!

I think Dark Tower, Annabelle and Hitman’s Bodyguard all have realistic shots at hitting $100m.

But lots of box office debris for sure that caused the slippage. I didn’t expect Transformers to be this weak, or Cars, or The Mummy. I thought they would all be candidates for the $150m club, and Pirates would get to $200m. Transformers may squeak past $150.

The only title I actually felt deserved better was Cars 3 though, as it is way better than Cars 2 but couldn’t overcome that movies reception.

Here’s hoping Apes and Spidey Dunkirk and Valerian are good and it’s reflected in the box office. It’s gonna be hard to make up ground though, July 2016 was the second best July on record ever in calendar grosses.

I think ANNABELLE has a shot (apparently it’s awesome), but I have a hard time seeing Lionsgate getting a RyRy-Sam Jackson action comedy to $100 million in late August if they couldn’t get John Wick 2 or the Expendables sequels to that mark (Expendables 1 just barely cleared it).

DARK TOWER looks execrable as a fan of the books, and it’s Sony, but here’s hoping!

It’s pretty unlikely that Annabelle 2 would get to 100M. The first grossed 87M. Conjuring 2 had a dropoff from the first to the 2nd. Even if Annabelle 2 is much better than the first, there’s not much of a recent track record of horror sequels/prequels outgrossing the original (Insidious 2 being an exception, I guess). Even Ouija: Origin of Evil, which is at 83% on RT lost 30% off of the original’s gross.

John Wick and The Expendables films, are fucking ultra violent, and let’s be honest: some people have a problem with that level of violence. The Hitman’s Bodyguard, looks like the sort of funny, comical violence, that people really eat up. I can see it hitting 100m easy, because of that alone.

Outside of that, I have faith in people finding Spidey like they found Wondie. Dunkirk looks amazing, but does anyone really want to sit through a movie like this, in fucking July? It just seems so out of fucking place. Here’s hoping Nolan is still culturally relevant, and gets people into the theatres. I have absolutely no clue about the Apes movie. I fucking loathe those films, but maybe people are up for a rousing finale? Oh. I forgot. The rousing finale, is people living like pets, treated like slaves, and eventually the alpha/omega going off. Yeah. HERE’S TO THAT SHIT BEING RETCONNED! WOOOO!

Now, let me ask all of you, to train your eyes to November. If anything helps the overall box office picture. It’s going to be November, because this Summer is probably fucked, and that will lead to all of the stupid think pieces. Think pieces, that Thor, JL, and Coco should wipe out on their own.

@TrackerBracker, yeah INSIDIOUS 2 inexplicably (I think it’s the worst of the series by a wide margin) bounced 50%+. PARANORMAL 3 bounced back $20 million from 2-3. THE PURGE has increased with every chapter.

So it happens…I don’t see any rhyme or reason as to why though. In this case the apparently superb quality and complete absence of competition this summer could be enough…or not. Who knows.

@js I might have a shred of hope for HITMAN’S BODYGUARD’s chances if LOGAN LUCKY and it weren’t canibalizing each other. Unbelievably stupid releasing on the same weekend.

August is more a ghost town this year (not that it’s ever great), DARK TOWER is no SUICIDE SQUAD or GUARDIANS…but some of that will obviously be made up in September when IT comes out. Kinda like they decided to postpone the first weekend of August a month back this year.

The 4th of July weekend(or week depending on perspective) is always weaker than expected.. Not sure the 4th on a Tuesday is any more rare than any other day..it happens once every 7 years(just like every other day) give or take a leap year.

Sorry to jump on this train Dave but seriously man….Wonder Woman: breakout smash directed by a woman with no qualifiers, among the best legs ever for a $100 million dollar opener, possible $400 million domestic and summer crown, first DC-based IP that’s NOT Batman to break out in literally decades, rare superhero film to turn a profit BEFORE overseas grosses…..nothing to see here!

JS- “Saving Private Ryan” opened in July 19 years ago and parlayed its critical (and box office) success into an Oscar run.
I’m sure that WB (and Chris Nolan?) had that in mind when dating “Dunkirk.”

Speaking of “Dunkirk,” I saw a 106-minute run time (Mojo?) which seems ridiculously short for (a) the genre (WW II epic); and (B) Nolan who hasn’t made a movie under two hours since 2002’s “Insomnia.” (Even “The Prestige” was 130 minutes.)
I’d have an easier time believing two hours/46 minutes.
Anyone?

I’ve seen similar claims of a running time right around 1:45, Movieman. I was surprised, too, not just because it’s Nolan, but also because it’s by all accounts a true ensemble movie, telling multiple stories within its running time.

JS is kinda my spirit animal right now because I’m agreeing with every word. November should be baller. Summer sucks because all anyone wants to do is some weak ass version of MCU. Note to studios: comic book heroes lend themselves to cinematic universes because they’re already interconnected due to the source material. Crossover events are, like, the THING in comics. Always have been. On that note, I don’t care what anyone says: an MCU Fantastic Four would be killer because The Thing deserves to be as loved as Ruffalo Hulk and Jackman Wolverine.

Just one quibble, JS:

“Outside of that, I have faith in people finding Spidey like they found Wondie.”

Dude. They found Wondie because it was a good movie backed by a gigantic marketing machine. Same will happen with Spidey. These aren’t small miracle movies barely on anyone’s radar. Or am I misreading that comment?

Can I say how jazzed I was to hear that Dunkirk was going to be that short – made me more excited to see the movie even though I’m a Nolan fan, let’s see him pull it off with the fat trimmed off for the first time in years. Loved Inception and The Dark Knight Rises but both could have been 15 minutes shorter….The Dark Knight and Interstellar would have actually been sharply better films with about 20 minutes trimmed off.

And when did Chris Nolan become “culturally irrelevant” suddenly?? Years later, folks are STILL obsessed with The Dark Knight and Inception. Despite the mixed reviews and unwieldy narrative, Interstellar still made bank mainly based on his name.

Geoffs… is there some reason why I should be touting Wonder Woman this weekend?

It did great. Deadpool business. Slightly better than the much-disliked Suicide Squad. Noted. Moved on. Not sure why it needs a weekly parade.

I’m glad it was directed by a woman… but there were 100 directors who could have done as well… the story may have added 10% to the business. And its position in DC has been mentioned here… but DC’s weakness isn’t my primary focus.

I think it’s more that, like it or not, it seems strange of you to have barely even mentioned Wonder Woman in the box office since opening weekend. You said nothing its second or third weekend, and its fourth weekend you merely noted that it passed $300 million, was likely to become the top DC earner, and that it won’t beat Guardians of the Galaxy 2 for the top earner of the summer. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s pretty interesting that it had easily the lowest opening of the DC universe films, but it has already become the highest domestic grosser, with plenty still left in the tank. The film obviously caught on big with the public and people like it a lot, and I think it boils down to people wanting to you to acknowledge that, yes, this movie people like is doing well, even if it is ultimately just stating the obvious.

Just to be clear, it’s been a long time since I did the “look at what it did this week!!!!” in this space or anywhere else during the summer. Go all the way back to Pirates 2 and then JS complaining when I didn’t dance in honor of Avengers every day.

DP, being first is a big deal. It disproved a strongly held belief that women couldn’t direct action and that solo women superheroes weren’t marketable. So that’s missing the point. It’s like saying what’s the big deal with Jackie Robinson, there were a lot of other good players before him.

As far as box office, I see WW as a sea change on every level. It’s exactly the kind of movie you used to tell us readers to watch out for. So maybe that’s why I’m surprised there isn’t any acknowledgement.

I appreciate the acknowledgement Dave but I was not even the first one to call you out on this – as a long-time reader, I’m fairly certain that you’ve done other periodic updates since Pirates 2 back in ’06: Avatar, Gravity, at least Hunger Games movie I can remember, etc…and considering these are BOX OFFICE-related blog posts, it’s strange that you would ignore what is basically the biggest box office story of the summer.

And I don’t doubt that there were several female directors who MIGHT have pulled this off as well but sadly, they weren’t given the opportuity and yeah, if this ended up getting negative response that BVS did last year and/or tanked can you imagine how many more years we would have waited for a major studio to hand over $150 million to a female director for a tent-pole or to even consider putting that kind of money towards a female-lead IP probably less known than Wonder Woman??

Sure now that it took off and Patty Jenkins is becoming a household name, it might have all seemed a no-brainer in retrospect but if things went the reverse way and this was Aeon Flux…not only would there fewer opportunities for similar projects over the next few years and for female directors, but Jenkins, Gadot, Snyder, Johns, and others behind this at WB/DC would have been eating shit for YEARS to come.

For a strange but somewhat relate-able analogy, just look at the amount of vitriol that has been leveled since the election at Hillary and the DNC – it didn’t matter if they won the popular vote and it doesn’t matter that they ATTEMPTED something historic, they are being viewed as LOSERS and it’s going to be that much harder for any one for the foreseeable future to try to follow in their footsteps.

Okay. Let me go into detail, about why David Poland, is my motherfucker. This motherfucker, has no selling fucking surprising and popular movies, and their box office, for years now. This goes back to 2008, when he downplayed fucking Iron Man, then he downplayed TDK. Go read those TDK box office weekends. It’s fucking nuts. Guess what? HE KEEPS DOING IT!

Did this motherfucker act this way with Inception? YES HE DID!

Did he act this way with AVENGERS? YES HE FUCKING DID!

Did he downplay fucking TFA’s box office? YES HE FUCKING DID!

If you have been on this blog, since day once like I have, then you know, that Dave is one interesting motherfucker. If I ever get to meet the man in person. I’m giving him an awkwardly long hug, because he’s such an idiosyncratic… motherfucker. Wondie, is just another long step, in David being David. We shouldn’t be surprised, but fucking Wondie is special, Man. It’s not like all of these comic book films, work. Some do, some don’t, but when they work like Wondie? It’s a fucking masterpiece.

Geoff… no… it’s going to be a woman. Mark my words… it’s going to be a woman.

Geoff-since you brought up the idea of female directors and Hillary Clinton, I would urge you to check out Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast “The Lady Vanishes” and his argument about ‘moral licensing’.

To me, his thoughts on Clinton could be extended to Patty Jenkins-just because Hollywood has opened the door a little bit for females and minorities with things like Wonder Woman and more diverse casting does not mean that the success behind that door opening is going to continue. If anything, people in charge of greenlighting films are going to pat themselves on the back for the successes and for being more inclusive, and slam the door closed as soon as any failures occur.

Yea, I have my conflicts with JS here and there but he’s been killing it lately. His breakdown of why Dave is so interesting is great. I’ve been reading this site since just after it’s birth, so a long time. David is unpredictable. Just look at his review of The House. He does his own thing. I agree WW deserves more attention but it’s in keeping with David’s unpredictability. You never know what is and isn’t going to get his attention.

I’m surprised no Baby Driver review as he’s been touting it as a sleeper BP nominee on Twitter. But then he goes and reviews the House. Wild.

Holy Moly look at those weekend finals. DM3 down to $72 million. Not sure I’ve ever seen such a slowdown over the course of the weekend for a cartoon…SpongeBob maybe? It could definitely be the holiday I guess, but whoa.

I was surprised how thinly populated the pool was yesterday as well for such a hot day, people may have taken what is an extra long weekend for many as a travel opportunity.

If not, and this is just the enthusiasm audiences have for this movie, then ouch. The sky is not falling but it does look a few feet closer than it did in May.

This might be the best case scenario though, Studios could get the message on how this glut of sequels are underperforming and change course. While the current films aren’t going to turn the massive profits that were envisioned, Mummy, Alien, Cars and Pirates will turn profits so the message is being delivered without these expensive projects absolutely cratering. These sequels coming in low but profitable is rough, but imagine a whole summer of Pans.

Shit. We are getting 8 to 9 superhero movies, for the next two fucking years! Shit! Well… here’s to them being good. That’s the most one can hope for; at this fucking point.

Now, if the lesson is fucking 8 to 9 superhero movies a year, then the studios need to fucking explore new IP. This has to be the lesson they learn… one fucking day. Universal, is still going to make the Dark Universe, into 50 year olds in monster trouble!

Fox, will probably ignore that people were more excited for Newt concept art, then anything in either Sir Ridley HATES GOD Alien movies, and let him finish his trilogy. They are also making more X-Men movies, for some god damn reason. It’s just ridiculous, that billions of dollars were spent this season, on a Summer that has so far, generated what? 4 good movies? FUCKING FOUR… GOOD… MOVIES! It’s pathetic, but hopefully the next decade doesn’t lean so fucking heavy on Superhero movies. Yes, I fucking love a lot of them, but the film industry has to come out swinging in the next decade, because millennials are going to enter their 30s and early 40s, and they are going to have to sell them something new and different to keep them interested.

I always thought summer is a perfect time for some musicals, though a Mamma Mia sequel was not exactly what I had in mind. Hopefully someone will get something together for 2019. Honestly if they still insist on exploiting IP for absolutely everything I would think a Monkees update would kill in the summer months.

I’m going to fly in the face of the predictable Film Twitter/Internet backlash and say that I found Baby Driver to be fantastically entertaining. It was everything I wanted it to be. I had as much fun with it as I had with Wonder Woman. Maybe a bit more. Jamie Foxx hasn’t been this good in long time. It’s not perfect but it still works as a whole piece. If you didn’t get any joy out of this thing you may be dead inside.

I enjoyed Baby Driver but yeah, I actually found similar issues with it to just about every other Edgard Wright movie besides The World’s End – he’s damn good at what he does but he just puts in too much of it to the point where it starts to feel exhausting towards the end, it feels like almost every film of his has at least one climax too many.

Consider myself surprised that it’s doing so well but kudos to Sony for figuring out how to market this thing.

And yes there are WAY too many superhero movies out there and those recent announcements by Fox about putting down placeholders for at least three or four “Untitled Fox Marvel event film” per year through 2020 just take it even further…it was not THAT long ago that having a “successful” franchise meant you could release a successful installment every other year or so, this shit’s just getting out of hand. I think this year so far, it hasn’t been as noticeable because each of the three comic book movies released so far seemed worlds apart from each other – Logan was marketed as a gritty Western, GOTG2 like the long-lost sequel to Buckaroo Banzai, and only Wonder Woman was actually marketed as a conventional superhero movie….lots of audience overlap obviously but still so many idiosyncratic differences to make them stand apart from each other. Starting this November you’re going to have Thor Ragnarok, Justice League, Black Panther, Avengers Infinity 3.5, Deadpool 2, and Ant-Man V Wasp ALL coming out within a eight month period….there’s going to be some cannibalization for sure.

Totally off track from what everyone else is talking about, but I was shocked to discover Xavier Dolan’s 2016 Cannes Grand Prix winner, “It’s Only the End of the World,” streaming on Netflix.
I know it was very divisive at Cannes, but it’s sad when a movie starring Nathalie Baye, Marion Cottilard, Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel–and helmed by a young director who’s already picked up quite a devoted cult following–couldn’t find a U.S. distributer willing to give it a proper release. Speaks volumes about the distribution problems faced by non-English language movies in today’s Darwinian theatrical climate.
I personally loved it. Yes, the acting is “big,” but it’s Liz + Dick “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” ” big” which is very, very good. It’s exceedingly well-directed and, for what’s essentially a chamber piece, quite cinematic.
Kudos to Netflix for picking it up. I couldn’t help thinking that five-six years ago it might have been a theatrical release for someone like Sony Classics or even Fox Searchlight. And maybe even a nice-sized arthouse hit.

Cad, Westerns burned themselves out, because they didn’t fucking change. Comic book films, in 20 years, have gone in so many different directions, that who knows how far they can stretch the medium. Also, thinking that, demonstrates your from past generations, that moved on from things. What no one ever fucking brings up in these discussions, is people no longer move on from shit. Pokemon is still a thing with 20 somethings, and has stuck with them forever. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Seriously. Look at the diversity.

Thor Ragnarok: goofy and funny buddy film.

Justice League: DC’s first team up movie, that now features the incredibly popular… FEMALE LEAD… GAL GADOT as… WONDER WOMAN!

Black Panther: Almost an entirely black production, of a Superhero known as… THE BLACK PANTHER! Go back to 1991, tell them Black Panther is getting a movie, and watch the guffaws.

Avengers Infinity 3.5: The team of of all team up movies, that is also an intergalactic movie, about power stones.

Deadpool 2: R-rated, fourth wall breaking, and gorey fun time.

Finally, Wasp and Ant-Man… A COUPLE SUPERHERO MOVIE! One more time… a SUPERHERO MOVIE ABOUT COUPLES!

If comic book movies, continue to fucking mix it up. They can keep going forever. Sure… the X-men movies will suck, but guess what? That’s been going on since 2000! Comic book films are fine, and will continue to be fine, as long as they remember that there is more in the world than a white man.

Alien: Covenant is at $230 million WW with an alleged $100 million budget before P&A. If it turns a profit it will be a minuscule one. Is that enough?

Superhero movies will be fine if they don’t overspend. Most seem to average out in the $600-700 million range, with a few outliers. Very good if budgets are kept under control. All the big franchises have their quirks in the midst of making zillions; Marvel cannot seem to break a billion without RDJ, DC couldn’t crack $900 million with Superman AND Batman, Harry Potter was the real draw not Newt whatshisface, and much of Asia considers Star Wars a *shrug* (China is really unimpressed). As long as they remember that when drawing up the budgets and projections, they’ll be fine.

We’ve had our disagreements JS, but you’re nailing it in this thread. People are quick to announce the death of superhero movies but those makers are learning. They are churning out product like Logan, WW, Dark Knight, that are odes to other genres of movies while existing in the comic book world. They are proving that regardless of the source material you can churn out a good movie.

I am concerned for Dark Tower and It. They have gotten Stephen King movies so horribly wrong in the past, I’m fearful, decent trailers notwithstanding, these movies will fail to deliver.

Yea, JS is right. As long as they keep employing inventive filmmakers superhero movies can go on for a long time. There will be flops and shit for sure but I’ll take all those so I can have one Logan. Here’s hoping Matt Reeves keeps his promise and makes The Batman a solid detective story. We haven’t seen enough of that out of Batman on film.

I’ve never read the Dark Tower books so I can’t get a read on whether that movie looks good or bad. My daughter wants to see it. I did read IT last Summer, though, and while I found it too long and not very scary I enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to the film. What’s interesting to me is that we haven’t heard much about the second film yet. Has it been cast? Is it filming? Unless the movie is outright bad I can see it being a sizable hit. But if it flops would they really just not finish the story? Besides, the kid portion of the story is the best part anyway. It was for me. It’ll be interesting to watch play out.

Sideshow, the It trailer debuted to much fanfare maybe two months back, Almost broke the internet. And coming off of the heals of a very popular Stranger Things run on Netflix, it kind of caught a wave of a show that ironically seemed to borrow from It. Talk about a movie circle jerk.

I get ya, Bulldog. I remember the trailer being everywhere. I just hedge my bets on everything because I always get everything wrong. I thought Blair Witch was going to be huge. I have no nose for these things anymore.

I do know The Dark Tower trailers don’t look like anything special to me. I meant to say that above but forgot. Haven’t read the books and the trailers don’t grab me that much.

“World” does have Dolan’s starriest cast yet, Ray.
Not saying it would’ve done “Amelie” numbers (I don’t think even “Amelie” would have been able to break through in the current theatrical climate for subtitled films), only that it deserved at least a (major city) arthouse release.

I haven’t read IT since it first hit paperback, but doesn’t splitting up the kids and the adult section seem wrongheaded? The twin narratives unfolding at the same time fed each other and kept a bit of mystery in the adults story that was addressed when the kids story caught up, I would think a sequel with the adults might be totally unneeded.

And I admit I was one of those who thought the superhero genre would eat itself back when Ghost Rider was announced (would audiences support FOUR superhero movies in a year?). I was so very very wrong, but I don’t fully agree with what JS and others are saying about its invincibility because even though it is a genre itself it can borrow enough from other genres it can stay fresh. All the Marvel movies might borrow from other genres but they all FEEL the same, they are designed to be uniform. Same with DC and to a lesser extent Xmen. Unless the idea is that these three different strains of heroes play off each other where we don’t mind three marvel movies a year since we had a DC and an xmen movie inbetween to cleanse the palette, I still don’t see how fatigue doesn’t eventually factor in.

As for the Western (not to mention the War movie and the musical, and the historical epic) I don’t have any analytical research for its decline but I blame NASA. A kid born into the sixties grew up in the world of tomorrow and when they hit teens and adulthood the myths they chased onscreen were ones of the future and not ones of the past. There might also be something about population shifts to the cities, children more willing to reject their parents tastes etc etc…

My point is Westerns didn’t kill westerns, there were greater outside cultural reasons for peoples lack of interest in them, just as I am sure there are plenty of people who have written that the superhero genre appeals to something specific in our post 9/11 psyche. So quality and variety of the films certainly isn’t going to be the primary factor in their longevity. The well can just dry up if the audience sees another shiny object.

Hcat, I fucking love westerns, but few films stretched that genre. You have spaghetti westerns, which are great, but are all inherently the same. You have the great Wayne pictures, and one of them he made twice… with Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Yeah. You have the Searchers, but the more you look at westerns, and you know this. The more it’s the white guy, going up against the bad white guy, with some shit being involved. The only thing that really changed a lot about westerns in 40 years, is that they went from conservatively dressed cowboys to hippie dressed cowboys.

Now, the space race could have changed things, but Westerns have always lingered. There is an appeal to the genre, when it’s different. The Hateful Eight, Unforgiven, and Open Range all do it a bit different. I mean, Star Wars is basically a western in space.

I don’t believe for a second, that comic book films are invulnerable. I do believe, that there is a way to tell these stories, for all of these characters, that we haven’t even come close to scratching the surface on. It’s all there in floppies though. Waiting for someone, to look at a specific superhero, and doing something different with it. That’s the only way the genre doesn’t die. Also,Kevin Feige doesn’t seem stupid enough, or arrogant enough, to think he can basically remake Iron Man in the next decade, but with younger actors. Geoff Johns, isn’t stupid either, so DC will hopefully keep pushing as well.

in any event, Wonder Woman and Beauty and the Beast may well be contenders for Best Picture. Female driven mega blockbuster films right at the moment when that’s the idea of itself the industry wants to pursue at this point in time. Women voters in the industry (and male voters who actually do care about equality) have a major vested interest in voting these films into high places this year.

whether or not the male dominated Oscar punditry will give these films a fair shake in prognostication is yet to be seen. 😉

The male Oscar punditry acting in unison in (coincidentally passive) sexist collusion to keep the male dominated status quo strong? that would surely never happen in this industry!

an interesting question for all the professed liberal male celebs that dominate the academy. Would George Clooney nominate Wonder Woman or Beauty and the Beast for Best Picture because they are trail blazing films for women and singularly important in film history? Or will he vote to nominate more mostly male melodramas like the Descendants where his female counterpart is literally lifeless and without agency?

Still early in the year, but I don’t believe B&tB would deserve a best picture nomination. And for all the well deserved accolades for WW, I still thought that Logan was a better movie. Pretty slim pickings for Oscar caliber stuff thus far. Get Out sits atop the tomato charts at the moment.

If Oscars were based on the last six months, any views on any deserving movies and performances thus far?

WW is a better flick than logan, far more ambitious – not a scene in logan that even BEGINS to match the iconic no-man’s land and second act of WW from a film-making and intensity standpoint. but blokes sure do like blokey stuff

“I haven’t read IT since it first hit paperback, but doesn’t splitting up the kids and the adult section seem wrongheaded? The twin narratives unfolding at the same time fed each other and kept a bit of mystery in the adults story that was addressed when the kids story caught up, I would think a sequel with the adults might be totally unneeded.”

yes. this is so bizarre, splitting it up, the narrative is effective because the characters develop in a non-linear way, to reveal why the adults are so fucked up

Also, splitting up IT, is just fucking nuts. Does this mean, that the kids aren’t going to be AS fucked up, and the second movie is like a horror movie version of Sleepers? Yeah. This movie is going to make a fucking killing, but that is such a weird choice.

king’s classic stories and characterisations tend to be long and dense, difficult to condense and rework for the cinematic medium. with the current state of mainstream screenwriting it’s not surprising somehow that it appears to be getting the overly-simplified treatment, i don’t see how it can be done properly this way but i guess we’ll see

Glad that B&B was a hit, wish Watson the best, haven’t seen it so can’t comment but is it really Oscar worthy?

Finally saw Logan, was excited, liked it quite a bit but think the R rating was a mistake. There is something about comic book characters swearing that seems sophomoric to me. And to have Xavier (yes I get he was addled) punctuating his speech with fucks seems so against the dignity of the character. Wolvie has always had to thread a needle in the comics and films on how much to show of the damage he does with his powers, but I never sat through the previous films and wished for more blood. Every time he put his claws through someone’s brains it took me out of the movie a bit. Had the same problem with the level of violence in BVS, Its a comic book, making it uberviolent is just juvenile posturing.

And for all the shit fanboys gave Avatar about Dances with Smurfs, they fall deep in love about a grizzled alcoholic being redeemed through a road trip with a troubled child? A little consistency please. Did a single one of them leave the theater and think “ahh, Gena Rowlands did it better.”

And JS, I think you are looking a little simplistically at westerns, they followed the major trends of the day and were very much the product of their times. Stagecoach was lean like the noirs of the day, How the West was Won was a Ben Hur type epic. The western genre had Bob Hope comedies, musicals, noirs, and epics. It went dark and realistically violent before the cop genre got there and took comedy to a brow lower before more traditional films got there. The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw reflected the filmmaking of its day just as the Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox reflected the Filmmaking of that day. You can trace the evolution of film through Wyatt Earp and Jesse James.

There were western comedies, western romances, western musicals, western epics and it still rode into the sunset, so superhero comedies, superhero romances (how do you have a romance in a genre where hardly anyone ever kisses), superhero war movies will not keep it fresh. Though I am down for a Superhero musical whenever they get around to that.

Hcat, I know this, but you are ignoring, that the western genre wasn’t pushed. It had films, that transcended the genre, but there are 50 film Western box sets for a reason. They kept churning out the same shit, and the only thing that changed were the clothes. Again, I love the genre, I love the films that you listed, but you cannot ignore how static the genre had become over it’s time at the top.

Also, Avatar is garbage, and it is a movie we have seen time and time before. You don’t get a lot of sadness and mortality in comic book films, and Logan excels at the sadness and the mortality. It’s good to know, that you are the one avatar fan waiting for those sequels. Someone has to be! SOMEONE… HAS TO BE!

There are two superhero musicals, and both of them involve the Music Mister.

The analogy here is the home video game market. It cratered in 1983 not because people didn’t want it or had moved on. It was just bad quality control and a glut of inferior product. Once Nintendo rolled in with it’s golden seal the market was restored and grew even more to what we have today. Sure times do change but a killer app is sometimes all you need to bring things back.

@Leah: “WW is a better flick than logan, far more ambitious – not a scene in logan that even BEGINS to match the iconic no-man’s land and second act of WW from a film-making and intensity standpoint. but blokes sure do like blokey stuff”

Don’t be so quick to judge Leah. This bloke is a gay dad with three daughters ages 16,14 and 11. Strong female characters both real and fictitious is a constant conversation in our household. So I’m not sure I qualify as the stereotypical “bloke” you may have in mind.

My reason for liking Logan more had absolutely nothing to do with gender, and if this was X23’s story, I would’ve felt the same way. I connected with the Logan story more because of my physical separation from my daughters and now having to plan to spend time with them as opposed to them being constantly with me, so that story resonated with me more on an emotional level. Plus the whole film noir feel to it was done well and I’m a bit of a sucker for that.

I thought that Logan was just as ambitious in its attempt to look different from every other superhero movie out there as WW also was ambitious in carving a niche for itself. The restraint showed by the Logan filmakers was in my mind a brilliant thing, as the temptation to go big in your swansong I’m sure was there, but to choose such a linear story was well done. So points for ambition but I just felt Logan pulled it off better, and will probably be more of a repeat viewer for me than WW.

Also the secondary characters in Logan stood out for more for me. Loved the work of Patrick Stewart and Stephen Merchant, and the little girl. Chris Pine stood out for me in WW, and while I liked Gal Gadot’s performance, I think this is one of those where she proved herself worthy of the role, and now we will see her grow as an actress because of it. I think there is only better to come from her in what was a good performance.

JS, I liked the melancholy and mortality of Logan, and I didn’t have a problem with the recycled storyline there’s a reason it has worked so well for so long. I just thought it was funny that the knives were out for one blockbuster and not another.

And we will have to agree to disagree on westerns, I still contend that Ox Bow Incident and Once Upon a Time in the West (just to pick two Fondas, who is head and shoulders above Wayne) are VASTLY different movies. But you and Palmtree might be arguing a different point than I am, since the buy in to one of these is 100 million a project there is less likely of a chance for thirty rote Monogram level superhero movies a year which will act as quality control and keep the pool from being overloaded.

So Leah’s list of transcendent King adaptions got me thinking, what author has been best served by the adaptions of their movies. I am a big Leonard fan but when they are not dead on perfect they are really rough (looking at you Stick), Crichton is probably under 50%.

of my favorite authors Russo is one for one, Ishiguro is 2 for 2 but those are probably not big enough samples to judge against the larger output of the pulpier writers.

egad, I was basically comatose for the Snyder-sludge that swept away WW in its last 20 minutes. LOGAN by a good margin, and I enjoyed WW. I would have given WW a slight edge before that, but a satisfying conclusion to a long saga beats 20 minutes of high-proof CGI garbage anytime.

@hcat, Philip K. Dick, who really isn’t the scribe everyone thinks, just was ahead of his time creatively.

to be clear bulldog not judging, logan was good but i see a lot of guys getting their knickers in a twist about WW being better (and it is). it is possible for men, whatever their sexuality, to have a male bias and not be aware of it to boot, esp in a male-dominated environment.

also, i don’t really feel like tearing logan at the seams but it has issues. i tend to think it’s the character – hugh’s brilliance and longevity as wolverine – that carries the movie and provides the nostalgia factor and emotional weight, not the film-making, which is fairly middling

and really, to complain about the finale of WW is pretty funny when logan ends up in the same fucking forest, the lack of imagination and repetition are not great.

i think the finale of WW is quite effective, though it was upon my second viewing that i really appreciated its weirdness and shades-of-grey ambiguity, the final clash of gods representing idealism and cynicism for the human race – and there are a lot of interesting effects and nice touches in the brouhaha; for instance i loved how chief hugs the german soldier; it’s never about ‘let’s win the war!’ but rather ‘let’s END the war’, giving it a different slant from conventional superhero stuff.

That better be fucking Homecoming, or we are going to have words! Like… did Marvel Studios make a movie you like, Man?

I adore fucking Wonder Woman, more than Logan, but this has just been a good year for superhero movies. It’s not like Logan is trite shit. It’s a good fucking movie, about going through shit. Wonder Woman, is sort of like Logan, but it’s about the shit people going through, and how a demigod responds to it. Also, it features FUCKING APACHE CHIEF! SUPER FRIENDS 4 LIFE!

Lastly, hcat, how many movies are like the Ox Bow Incident? Sure. It’s great, but that’s a common story in Westerns. The same like Once Upon a Time in the West. Again, you keep pointing out all of these movies, while ignoring how those movies are almost western tropes, and the minority among a vast static majority.

JS, Homecoming is the best Marvel movie by a lot. And to be clear I’m saying this while not completely in love with this specific version of Spidey himself (I grew up with the comics in the 80’s and 90’s, so I’m not into the Iron Man Jr Spider suit.). It is so well written. They manage to skip the origin story in favor of showing him become the hero we know. Sounds contradictory but you’ll get it when you see it. Keaton is awesome, best best best Marvel villain period. Great character and they actually managed to make The Vulture threatening (hate the comic version. Always have.)

Cannot say enough about Holland. The moment he goes from 15 year old with powers to Spider-Man is cathartic as shit.

Cannot wait for the next movie. Cannot wait to see Spidey grow even more in Avengers. They are legit telling a full throated arc with this character and I think it’s even more compelling than the years spent building to Infinity War.

“It is possible for men, whatever their sexuality, to have a male bias and not be aware of it to boot, esp in a male-dominated environment.”

Yes it is possible, but it’s also possible that one can be engaging in a bit of reverse stereotyping Leah. I don’t have to have a male bias to say that I enjoyed Logan more than WW. It could be that that’s just what happened. I enjoyed WW more than all the other male dominated movies in the new DC universe, and most of the ones in the Marvel universe. We were comparing these two particular films and of them Logan resonated more with me.

that’s fine bulldog, i’m not ‘reverse stereotyping’ to point out that i’ve seen – and not just here by any means – this weird need for (overwhelmingly) dudes to point out when the impact of WW is being discussed how ‘logan’ is actually better and more relatable to them, it resonates more. it’s like, shocker!

Logan’s first 40 minutes or so is good. The rest is drecky. T2 Wolverine is about the most cliched unimaginative angle on “Has to fight his past to protect his future”. But Professor X has dementia, so POIGNANT!

WW is competent with a few good moments. No Man’s Land is iconic for precisely the amount of time it takes WW to climb the ladder until she starts doing stuff. Then Jenkins direction becomes Snyder-esque with crappy CGI ruining the fighting. Her face off with Thewlis-Hulk that ends in laser beams is stupid.

Spidey has heart and soul, and it’s invigorating to watch a super hero film in which the protagonist is defined by saving life instead of needing to punch/laser blast the bad guy in order to bring the action to a climax.

My only complaint with the film is the weird white Hollywood exec version of multicultural casting. Simply making every supporting character a POC is dumb. If they were genuinely interested in diversity they would have gone with Miles Morales Spidey vs Peter Parker. I’m fine with Parker but making a point to surround him with POC kinda underlines the same old: white guy saves the day.

I shouldn’t really even classify this as a complaint about the movie as it has zero impact on the proceedings. More of an aside about how fake Hollywood still is with this stuff.

(the ‘nomansland is good while she climbs the ladder before she starts doing stuff’ take is possibly the dumbest thing ever. ‘cept for the predictable ‘jenkins is mediocre’ drum the jelly boys be beating)

“and really, to complain about the finale of WW is pretty funny when logan ends up in the same fucking forest, the lack of imagination and repetition are not great.”

I thought feral girls and boys unleashing eyebrow raising ultraviolence on soldiers was a sliiightly different ending next to the 100th “Explosion Faceoff in a Large Space” I’ve seen in the last few years.

I saw Logan two weeks ago and Wonder Woman yesterday. I think both are outstanding and easily two of the best movies I have seen this year. Love them both almost equally. I guess I’m sexist but I give Logan a slight edge not because I can relate to it but because it feels a little bit less like a conventional superhero movie than Wonder Woman. I like that the stakes are lower than what is usual for a superhero movie. It is close though and I’m so glad both exist and are so good. It is hard to believe that YA Spiderman is vastly superior to both.

“Spider-Man is much more successful in what it’s trying to achieve than either Logan or WW.”

Which isn’t necessarily a compliment. The next question then becomes “Is what it’s trying to achieve better than what Logan and WW are trying to achieve?”

Strictly based on my answer to that question, I think WW has the edge.

Even in your description of the use of POC characters, I detect a certain calculation to the proceedings. I’m actually super excited to see those POC characters, don’t get me wrong, but I also want it to come from a place of authenticity. That’s what I believe WW offers…authenticity.

“I give Logan a slight edge not because I can relate to it but because it feels a little bit less like a conventional superhero movie than Wonder Woman”

i can see this; to me logan is conventional in other respects but it def takes a route less travelled, which is nice and hopefully something we’ll see more of if the superhero craze doesn’t die down and becomes the new Action Movie standard, how it appears at the moment.

trying to figure out what has brought us here, it’s like a confluence of: real-world action movies having become so physics-defying and egregiously unrealistic in this shaky-cam/ultra-edited CGI era, combined with vaguely disaffected youth wishing they had powers to pound shit and fly i guess

i hope the WW blu has some extras featuring the low-to-the-ground sliding stunt work for the fight/CQC photog, one of the stand-out design features, i’ve seen a few clips online but need more. ‘slide-y mcstabberson’ as my son refers to it (Diana), she’ll cut a bitch